ABSTRACT
This chapter examines evidence for the early use of ceramic vessel technology by prehistoric communities in Poland. The inventories from these sites include a flint industry with some Mesolithic features, and LBK-like ceramics. The production and use of pottery was very widespread, and the vessels had distinctive technology, morphology and decoration that were quite different to the strictly Neolithic ceramics made by farming communities. The pottery-using hunter-gatherers of the Erteblle culture inhabited the northern fringes of central Europe, but their distinctive ceramics were only one of several kinds of non-Neolithic' pottery that were produced by hunter-gatherer communities in eastern parts of central Europe. The northern edges of the Polish territories were influenced by the cultures of southern Scandinavia. The analysis also revealed that Zedmar ceramics shared certain traits that belonged to the pottery of Neolithic cultures. The traditional approach to the post-Pleistocene prehistory of central Europe focuses on the detection and documentation of discrete archaeological cultures.
